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MCC pays tribute to media pioneer

The Media Complaints Council of T&T (MCC) yesterday expressed condolences to family, friends and the media fraternity on the passing of Therese Mills, the executive chairman/CEO of Newsday. In a release yesterday, the MCC described Mills as a woman of immense courage, fortitude and a pioneer in the field of Caribbean journalism.

“She was forthright in defence of media freedom and independence in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider world. Ms Mills played a pivotal role in the establishment of the MCC in 1997 at a time when there was general public concern for media reform, after the then government produced a Green Paper on the media,” the release stated.

This paper, the MCC explained, proposed adoption of statuses that required journalists to report with “due accuracy and impartiality.” The T&T Publishers and Broadcasters Association (TTPBA) also saw the need to establish an independent body charged with enforcing a self-adopted code of practice.

“This body would promote and enforce standards of fair and responsible journalism and protect the independence of journalists by holding them accountable to their colleagues and their profession and not to the government. Thus a code of practice was adopted and the MCC was created to enforce this code and to receive and adjudicate on complaints made by members of the public.”

The release continued: “Mills envisioned that the MCC would help maintain public trust and confidence in the news media by promoting fairness, courtesy and balance and by creating a forum where the public and the news media can engage each other in examining standards of journalistic fairness.”